Gene Cernan

[mashmaster]

Gene was a 2nd Class scout.

 

Watching the Mercury 7

 

Gene Cernan’s wife asked:  Would you like to do that?

 

Gene's response:  I would love to do it, just give me the chance.   But by the time I get good enough, by the time I get qualified, by the time I meet all the requirements, there won’t

Be anything left to do.  All the Pioneering will be over.  Don’t ever short change yourself, you never ever know what fate has in store.  I got a call out of the blue, it was NASA and asked to come try out.

 

Cernan tells his grandchildren: “Don’t ever count yourself out. You’ll never know how good you are unless you try. Dream the impossible and go out and make it happen. “I walked on the moon. What can’t you do?â€

Edited January 17, 2017 by NJCubScouter
Edited at poster's (implied) request

[NJCubScouter]

Interesting quotes. [Redacted after correcting original post]

 

As all of the news reports today have been pointing out, he has the distinction of being the last person, so far, to stand on the Moon.  I remember his missions from when I was a pre-teen and teenager.  What is a little disappointing is that it has now been slightly more than 44 years since Gene Cernan walked on the moon, and we have no current prospect of going back.  If you had told me when I was 14 years old that that would be the case, I would have said it's impossible.    By 2016 there will be passenger flights to the Moon every week, not to mention the flying cars.  Where are the flying cars?  

 

Anyway... R.I.P. Gene Cernan.

Edited January 17, 2017 by NJCubScouter

[mashmaster]

Yes Gene, I think my brain confused him with Jim Lovell for some reason.   I wish I could edit the post....

Edited January 17, 2017 by NJCubScouter
Well, I could, and I did :)

[qwazse]

We might not have walked on the moon since then, but we've enabled millions to survive a variety of coronary diseases and cancers (among other diseases).

 

Worth the trade-off, I think.

[blw2]

Interesting quotes. [Redacted after correcting original post]

 

As all of the news reports today have been pointing out, he has the distinction of being the last person, so far, to stand on the Moon.  I remember his missions from when I was a pre-teen and teenager.  What is a little disappointing is that it has now been slightly more than 44 years since Gene Cernan walked on the moon, and we have no current prospect of going back.  If you had told me when I was 14 years old that that would be the case, I would have said it's impossible.    By 2016 there will be passenger flights to the Moon every week, not to mention the flying cars.  Where are the flying cars?  

 

Anyway... R.I.P. Gene Cernan.

 

I had not heard the news.... I'm saddened by it for sure.

 

I had the pleasure of hearing Captain Cernan speak once.  It was a rather small audience at Airventure several years ago.  He spoke at length about the very subject you touched on NJcubScouter.  

How sad it is that we have not been continuing to explore more than we have.  Also as I recall he spoke about the way things had become so routine.... how the world stopped to watch those first missions, but by the time of his last mission.... and for the majority of the shuttle missions, it was old hat.  It's like many people weren't aware it was even happening.  I don't recall it all, but as I remember it was a very nice motivational talk encouraging further exploration.

 

I hope that someday someone will go back and see his bootprints that are surely still up there.

[SSScout]

Yeah,  it is hard to "wow" the kids today.  Transformers seem more real to some kids than real space missions, with real humans.   Pictures of a comet, or the surface of Pluto?  So what?

 

My mother talked about watching the dirigible Hindenburg fly over Boston on its way to Lakehurst, NJ.   She(and my dad) lived to see the creation of the modern automobile, transpacific airliners,  humans walking on the moon ( I stayed up late to watch that happen on REAL TV . Thank you, Mr. Cronkite). 

Can we talk to our kids (my youngest is 22) about what we watched?  What we witnessed?    Make an impression?   Can we help them learn from our mistakes, not to make them again? And again? 

[Stosh]

Let me see.  We can keep a perpetual space station operational (no gravity, hard on the human body).  There are grandiose ideas to colonize Mars, but over the past 40+ years there have been no practice colonies on the moon.  One would think that the middle step should have been taken, unless of course the conspiracy theorists are correct in that there's something about the moon that keeps it off-limits.

[NJCubScouter]

We might not have walked on the moon since then, but we've enabled millions to survive a variety of coronary diseases and cancers (among other diseases).

 

Worth the trade-off, I think.

 

Trade-off implies we couldn't have done both.  I see no reason to believe that.

[NJCubScouter]

One would think that the middle step should have been taken, unless of course the conspiracy theorists are correct in that there's something about the moon that keeps it off-limits.

 

It must be that monolith buried right under the surface, with dimensions 1x4x9.

[qwazse]

@@NJCubScouter, we really couldn't. The dollars required to address Nixon's cancer initiative alone eclipsed several moon shots over the years. Remember the "can't even cure the common cold" phrase?

Science fiction makes keeping space-bound humans happy and healthy look easy. But it really is rocket science.

Let me see.  We can keep a perpetual space station operational (no gravity, hard on the human body).  There are grandiose ideas to colonize Mars, but over the past 40+ years there have been no practice colonies on the moon.  One would think that the middle step should have been taken, unless of course the conspiracy theorists are correct in that there's something about the moon that keeps it off-limits.

Radiation, dust (fun fact: the moon smells like cordite), meteor impacts, and water prospects are the main impediments. It's taken this long to solve most of those without actually killing our best astronauts in the process. (As it is, we lost enough getting them up and back from orbit.)

 

Of course there is some truth to the fact that political will has gotten in the way, but the broader story is how the populace has extracted lemons from lemonade.

 

Compared to the span between the Vikings and the rise of European circum-navigation, things are moving at a fairly good clip.

Edited January 17, 2017 by qwazse

[NJCubScouter]

Science fiction makes keeping space-bound humans happy and healthy look easy. But it really is rocket science.

 

I understand the difference between science fiction and science fact.  I understand that "Star Trek" can't happen until someone disproves Einstein so we can travel faster than light.  And even on something much more mundane like traveling to the closest planet, I understand there are difficult challenges to overcome.  But I feel like we haven't really tried.

 

If there really is a choice between, say, eliminating cancer and traveling to Mars, I would choose eliminating cancer every day of the week.  But I don't think that's the choice.  Maybe the cure for cancer is waiting for us on Mars.  (Probably not.)

[Stosh]

Maybe traveling faster than the speed of light is not the solution, maybe just warping time and space will do the trick.

[David CO]

Manned lunar space flights have become obsolete.  We have robots to do that job. 

 

If modern computer chips were available 50 years ago, Gene Cernan would have never walked on the moon.  There would have been no need for him to do so.

 

Yes, it is getting much harder to impress young people.  That is why the Barnum & Bailey Circus is shutting down.

[qwazse]

... If there really is a choice between, say, eliminating cancer and traveling to Mars, I would choose eliminating cancer every day of the week.  But I don't think that's the choice.  Maybe the cure for cancer is waiting for us on Mars.  (Probably not.)

Not there, but possibly along the way.

Figuring out how to make folk's cells robust against radiation damage is as much part of cancer treatment delivery as it is of astronautics.

Figuring out how to corral radiation around a "safe capsule" has even broader applications in development of medical devices.

 

I'm not as glib as David CO about the supremacy of robotics. It's taken tremendous effort to get state-of-the-art probes to do a fraction of the jobs that manned missions could do.

 

The "long road" -- i.e. being earthly minded for a couple of generations -- is giving us tools for very long journeys which will help our grandchildren be of some heavenly good.

[NJCubScouter]

Maybe traveling faster than the speed of light is not the solution, maybe just warping time and space will do the trick.

 

Yeah, "just".  Well, as long as it's easy.